# Sounds are Broad events  ## Metadata - Author: [[49]] - Journal: [[Synthese]] - Category: #philosophy #review - Summary: The document discusses the metaphysics of sounds and the different views on what a sound is. The author defends the broad event view of sounds, which identifies a sound with a broad event that produces and shapes an acoustic wave. The author critiques other views, such as the monadic event view and the relational event view, for failing to capture the full range of sounds or for narrowing the event too much. The broad event view allows for a more comprehensive understanding of sounds and their relationship to auditory perception. - URL: https://readwise.io/reader/document_raw_content/138763065 ## My Comments - As a whole I like this paper a lot. In particular, the arguments make in 4.1 and 4.2 - However, the (only) major issue I have with it is the following: Leddington's 2019 'event property view' of sound does not get any attention. - This gets a reference early on it is lumped in with the views of kulvicki and pasnau. However, it still seems to be a very clear competitor to the 'Broad Event' view that this paper argues for: Leddington says that what we hear are *events* 'such as collisions', so this is extremely close to what is being argued for in this paper. - Moreover, Leddington gives us a reason for disregarding a view he calls *Identity*, which is very similar to the broad event approach. If we say that we hear broad events, he says, it means that we can also see sounds and hear sounds: >If sounds are identical to their source events, then perceiving source events – by whatever means – is perceiving sounds. Thus, if we can see source events, we can see sounds. When I see a collision, I see a sound. In fact, I might see the sound before I hear it, or without hearing it at all! Moreover, it follows that deaf but normally sighted people perceive a great many sounds with great acuity.3 If we can feel collisions and vibration events in objects, then we can touch sounds. And if we can be said to smell events such as onions sizzling in a frying pan, then we can actually smell sounds! - This is one of the reasons he gives for thinking that we should give up on *Identity*/Broad Events, and endorse his view. That we hear Events and hear them to bear sounds. –While we can see a collision or sizzling onions, we cannot see their timbre or pitch., (timbre and pitch being, on his account, aspects of sound properties). - Arguably, another advantage of the property view is that it has a better answer to the 'when do sounds begin?' question. Sounds begin when events start to instantiate pitch timbre etc., or those physical properties which underlie them. - I want to be clear here that I would not expect a paper like this to go through every single view about what sounds are that has been put forward. However, the Leddington view seems to close, and to much of a competitor for this paper to ignore. It would seem to me that it deserves at least as much attention as O'Callaghan's mereological view - a couple of other –much more minor– things 1. I didn't understand this example at all: >The broad event view holds that a sound is individuated not by a particular vibrational frequency, but by an event. Therefore the broad event view can allow that a siren that varies in vibrational frequency, and thus pitch, creates just one sound. Because a siren participates in one and the same event, even though the frequency at which it vibrates varies, the broad event view can hold that the siren makes one sound throughout its career. - wouldn't the siren participate in multiple events throughout its career, such as when it is switched off and then back on again? 2. The ideas about diversity in 4.2 I found convincing, but I think the 'cracking of the whip' example is more compelling than the clapping of the hands one. - It might also be worth mentioning Soteriou's Catholic view of sounds found in the *Perceptual Ephemera* edited volume. As he says something somewhat similar, although is arguing for it in quite a different way) ## Highlights - The most serious problem for this view is that auditory perception does not make us aware of waves in an ambient medium.2 Instead, auditory perception makes us aware of the striking of the tuning fork, of the source of the acoustic wave. Why not, then, simply identify a sound with an event that produces an acoustic wave? ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hnyp696ckrzfk59g7rf19c2z)) - Though two versions of the event view have been developed in detail, I argue that neither is satisfactory. In particular, Casati and Dokic’s (1994) monadic event view fails to capture the full range of sounds, while O’Callaghan’s (2007, 2009, 2010) relational event view identifies a sound with too narrow of an event, leading to problems capturing important differences between sounds, and putting the perceiver at an unnecessary remove from the kind of broad events she typically cares about. The broad event view corrects these problems, and provides the best account of sounds. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hnyp73hqm2s1zzjxgtf9hbgk)) - The identity view identifies a sound with an event source; the broad event view identifies a sound with an event that produces and shapes an acoustic wave. C ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hnyp9p3k5xh2ty6yx6ecyqar)) - The philosopher’s question is about the object of auditory perception: what elements of the causal chain that leads to auditory experience are objects of auditory perception? P ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hnypaqzdsq9t4jg0a1c87tcm)) - Third, individuation. A sound can survive changes in its audible properties. When I hear a siren, which rises and falls in pitch, my auditory experience seems to make me aware of one continuous sound. An event, like the vibration of a siren, can endure changes in its properties: in this case, changes in the frequency of its vibration. Identifying a sound with an event allows for a sound to survive changes in its audible properties. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hnypd4bm3xxntp11wc2f3bpx)) - The relational event view holds that a sound is located at the site of the disturbance of an ambient medium, which matches our auditory experience (O’Callaghan 2007, 29–43). The view holds that a sound lasts as long as the medium is disturbed, which matches our experience of the duration of sounds (O’Callaghan 2007, 43–46). Finally, because the relational event view identifies a sound with an event, it can accommodate changes in auditory qualities over the course of a single sound’s existence (O’Callaghan 2007, 61–4). ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hnypf5sjgncy3b18p3sve9mc)) - A major advantage of the broad event view is that it can account for the heterogeneity of events we auditorily perceive, and hence for the heterogeneity of sounds. There are environmental sounds, like raindrops or leaves rustling; there are musical sounds, like a violin being bowed; there are vocal sounds. Some sounds involve striking an object with another object, like when I tap my hand on the table. Other sounds do not fit this model, like the sound of a seltzer water bubbling, or thunder. Sounds are a diverse bunch, but they are all broad events that produce and shape acoustic waves. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hnypjsyy42jd48sxs8xrjntk)) - Note: It might be worth mentioning Soteriou's catholic view of sounds. It might be worth mentioning Soteriou's Catholic view of sounds here, as he also thinks that we can hear all sorts of things. - Simplifying somewhat, air pressure comes up from the diaphragm causing the vocal folds to vibrate, sending pressure waves upwards, which are then modified by the vocal tract. An acoustic wave is produced at the vocal folds. But to give a complete characterization of vocalization, we need to consider what happens to thewave after the vocal folds; we need to consider how the pressurewave is shaped as it travels through the vocal tract, ultimately producing a particular acoustic signal. On the broad event view, a vocal sound is identified with this entire event—not just the part of vocalization that immediately causes an acoustic wave, but also the shaping of the wave after its initial production. Similarly, consider the way a reed instrument like a clarinet produces sound: a player blows through a reed to create a pressure wave, then that wave is modified as it travels through the clarinet, ultimately creating a kind of vibrating column of air, which then disturbs the medium outside the clarinet. On the broad event view, the sound of a clarinet is identified with this entire activity, not just the narrow step of the vibrating reed disturbing an ambient medium. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hnypn7cjzm6efa3q7zstvpf6)) - In a case where I strike a tuning fork at 𝑡1 and perceive the striking of the tuning fork at 𝑡2, the manufacturing of the tuning fork at 𝑡0 is part of the causal chain that leads to my auditory experience. But at 𝑡2 I do not hear the tuning fork being manufactured: my auditory experience at 𝑡1 does not make me immediately auditorily aware of the manufacturing of the tuning fork. I do, however, hear the tuning fork being struck, according to the broad event view: my auditory experience at 𝑡1 does make me immediately auditorily aware of the tuning fork being struck. I am unsure how to give a principled ‘recipe’ to determine just which steps in this causal chain are objects of auditory perception, or whether it is possible to provide such a recipe. I do not know how to determine whether or not one can become immediately auditorily aware of a particular step on a chain of events that leads to auditory experience. T ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hnypqxxzyr7a32kwg45nbp0r)) - Note: struck is ambiguous - I admitted just above that the precise starting point of the event is difficult to determine. The end of the event is more straightforward: the event ends when an acoustic wave is no longer being produced or shaped. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hnyptcpva7pz612d0kz7eh98)) - The broad event view holds that a sound is individuated not by a particular vibrational frequency, but by an event. Therefore the broad event view can allow that a siren that varies in vibrational frequency, and thus pitch, creates just one sound. Because a siren participates in one and the same event, even though the frequency at which it vibrates varies, the broad event view can hold that the siren makes one sound throughout its career. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hnypw540khfqf6gn8c8hs5h3)) - Thunder is not a vibrating object: it comes about when the heat from a lightning bolt dissipates into the surrounding air. That heat causes the air to expand, creating a compression wave. Surely thunder is a sound, but there is no vibrating object involved in any instance of thunder. Another example is a handclap. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hnyqd818gmv59s28vz80fc8q)) - . When you clap your hands, your hands trap and compress air between them. When this air pushes out, away from your hands, it causes a disturbance in the surrounding medium. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hnyqdre07m91ktycwfjnnq45)) - There is no vibrating object. A third example is a cracking whip. The movement of the whip displaces air and causes a disturbance in the medium. Because the movement of the whip isn’t a vibration, a cracking whip is yet another counterexample to the monadic event view. I take these sorts of cases to raise a decisive problem for the monadic event view. For the broad event view, on the other hand, thunder is the event of lightning heating the air, a handclap is an event that displaces air, and cracking a whip is the event of, well, cracking a whip. They are all broad events that produce and shape acoustic waves. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hnyqgdhqnkcajrev3knqna1c)) - Note: this is a good argument. The whip one at least. - Sounds, on the relational event view, are identified with the narrow event, not the broad event. In this subsection, I showwhy this account is undesirable and show how the broad event view offers an improvement. Taking a sound to be a broad event allows us to be in direct perceptual contact with the kinds of events we typically care about, and allows for a proper characterization of sounds involving complex processes, like vocalization. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hnyqn1npgwc6rq9ggewey733)) - O’Callaghan resists identifying a sound with a broad event for two main reasons. First, he believes that a broad event has features that a sound does not have. For instance, a foot stomping event might include redness and pain in the stomping foot, and a sound cannot have the property of redness or pain (O’Callaghan 2011, 396, 400). Second, we can purportedly perceive, refer, or attend to a sound without perceiving or attending to its source. This, O’Callaghan claims, suggests a separation between sounds and broad source events (O’Callaghan 2011, 380, 396). O’Callaghan concludes that a sound cannot be identified with a broad event like a foot stomping. Instead, we become auditorily aware of a broad event like a foot stomping in virtue of hearing the medium disturbance part of that broad event. I consider these in turn. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hnyqp8t7m9qbey500yvgn5fa)) - First, O’Callaghan’s argument that broad events have properties that sounds cannot have. Casati et al. (2013) provide a way to avoid this issue by noting a distinction between what they call the object source and the event source of a sound.19 The object source of a sound is the object that vibrates and disturbs a medium. The event source is the broad event that causes a medium disturbance. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hnyqr67j2smkaf2nanrp6h8j)) - Second, O’Callaghan’s argument that you “can perceive a part without perceiving the whole. For instance, seeing proper parts of a house, such as a shutter or even a façade, does not entail seeing the house. Likewise, you may hear the sound without hearing the broader stomping event. Sounds therefore are audible independently from sources” (O’Callaghan 2011, 396). ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hnyqrz7fxfhecr2vx3njry0s)) - f attention and demonstrative ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hnyqw8521qpfcttvk2kjtsh0)) - The idea seems to be that our ability to attend or refer to sounds without attending or referring to their sources is a good reason to think that sounds and their sources are distinct. For when we listen to music without listening to the sources of the sounds in music, we are just listening to narrow medium-disturbance events, and not the broader event of, e.g., bowing a violin. But we can explain these phenomena without positing a distinction between sounds and sources. Take O’Callaghan’s example, the phenomenol- ogy of musical listening. According to Scruton (1997), musical listening involves attending to musical sounds as tones; abstracting away from the material basis of the sounds and instead focusing on the structural relations between sounds.20 To account for this kind of experience, we only need to appeal to a way of attending to sounds; we don’t need to adapt our account of the metaphysics of sound.21 If sounds are broad events, we can account for the experience of musical listening as attending to particular properties or aspects of sounds, for instance the pitch, timbre, and dynamics of the bowing of a violin, and especially the sound’s place in a musical structure. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hnyqxv537y8c8tjzxn401y4f)) - The broad event view can provide a straightforward account of auditory demonstrative reference to environmental events (we hear them immediately) and of why you never hear a source in absence of a sound (sounds just are sources). ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hnyqzk1acbt462x9d620m1cp))